taxed to t heir utmost capacity all the steam-boats on the Western waters and all the rolling-stock on the Western, and Southwestern railroads. It was a hrculean task to collect, transfer, and concentrate at one point horses and mules by the hundreds of thousands, corn and oats by the millions of bushels, hay by the tens of thousands of tons, wagons and ambulances by the tens of thousands, fitted out with harness; subsistence stores by the hundreds of thousands of tons, and miscellaneous articles in the aggregate proportionably large. At the same time, immense trains of railroad stock, engines, and cars were brought from the East, crossed over the Ohio River at Louisville, and sent forward to transfer the stores from Nashville to the front. It was from the depot at Nashville thus stocked that Major-General Sherman drew the supplies for his grand army from the beginning of its march to the end, save the requisitions he made upon the enemy. The arduous taks of transferring these imense supplies to the ever-changing front devolved upon the present Brevet Major-General Donaldson, then chief quartermaster of the Department of the Cumberland, and how well that task was performed is known to your and the army. I have now given a skeleton outline of the operations of the department directed by myself, but a more distinct conception of the magnitude of the business may be derived from an exhibit of the cash expenditures.

From the 1st of October, 1861, to the 30th of June, 1865, I have received and expended $106,657.24, while there were expended during the same time at Saint Louis under my directions $90,799,435.88, making an aggregate expenditure of $197,494,093.12. As I have before stated, to enumerate the supplies purchased by this vast sum of money is impracticable, but some of the prominent items may be mentioned. At the two points of Saint Louis and Louisville alone within the dates given were purchased *,864,173 bushels of corn, 26,234,423 bushels of oats, 377,518 tons of ahy, 6,638 wagons, 1,269 ambulances, 60,854 sets of harness, 100,364 horses, and 75,329 mules. But the purchases made by muyuself or under my immediate supervision, vast as they are, were accomplished with less labor to myself than the task, self-imposed, of revising the vouchers of the inexpeirenced quartermasters stationed at remote points or attached to troops in the field. I have not only revised my own accounts, but I have performed the part of auditor in the exmination of the accounts of others. Not less than 250,000 vouchers have passed through my hands, and by this system of surveillance millions have been saved to the Treasury. It is no fault of mine that I have not served with marching columns. Major-General Sherman did me the honor to apply for my assignment to his command, proposing to confide to me a wide discretion at the commencement of his last memorable march and it was a service which I sought. But the application was denied for reasons complimentary to myself-that my services were of more value to the Government in the position I occupied as the chief quartermaster of the Valley of the Mississippi, in which several armies were operating, than directing the transportation of a single army already equipped and provided. In the general direction of my whole business I have received most efficient and able aid from the chief quartermaster of the Department of the Missouri, Bvt. Brigadier General William Myers. The depot at Saint Louis, the largest in the West, has been in his immediate charge. His own reports will show the enormous amount of stores of all kinds which have passed through his hands. His disbursements, second only to my own, amount to $90,799,435.88 running through 122,088 vouchers. At the depot a very large amount of clothing has been manufactured and extensive repair